Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 26

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November 26

Sight unseen (expression)

So the other day my wife was out shopping at thrift stores. I stayed home doing yard work. She called me an asked if I received a picture she had texted me. The picture was of an old church pew she thought would look nice in our dining room...but it was an expensive purchase. For whatever reason, my phone was not receiving texts at the time, so my response to her was: "If there is anyone I trust to make a purchase 'sight unseen' it is you." (Meaning that, even though I had not seen the item, I was okay with her buying it on her own judgment.) That got me thinking: Is the expression "sight unseen" redundant? I have used the expression before in similar circumstances. Am I using it wrong? Something seemed "wrong" when I said it this time. We really don't have an article on the expression. Any resources you can point to about the origin and/or correct usage? Quinn ^{✩ STARRY NIGHT} 03:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It's idiomatic (i.e. it may resist deep analysis of the type you seek), and similar to other technically grammatically incorrect but common constructions like "irregardless" and the like. --Jayron32 03:33, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

She isn't buying it "sight unseen", however. Unless her photo came through, you are. Bielle (talk) 03:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that the expression takes on the meaning we assign to it. But I am interested in doing an article on Sight unseen (expression) but am having trouble finding info on this...sorry that I didn't make this clear, and looking for resources. (In hindsight it was more of an open ended question.) Quinn ^{✩ STARRY NIGHT} 03:50, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

We probably shouldn't have an article on it: Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --ColinFine (talk) 00:20, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

We do have Category:English idioms and Category:English phrases so perhaps it is appropriate. (Yes, I am aware that "we have other articles like that" is not sufficient justification for an article.) Mitch Ames (talk) 03:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Chinese to English

What does this mean: 屌你老母? For context, found here [1]. Bielle (talk) 03:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It is Cantonese, and means 'Fuck your old mother'. See Cantonese profanity#Diu. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 04:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I did ask. Thank you, KageTora. Bielle (talk) 05:38, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

A corollary to the old "if a tree falls..." puzzler: If you post an obscenity on someone's page and they don't know what it means and don't bother investigating it, have they really been insulted? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I would say yes, because merely not noticing something doesn't mean it didn't happen. What if a guy was shot point blank in the head and died instantly so he didn't notice? Has he really been shot? :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:12, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

That's a little different. You don't have to be aware you're dead, to be dead. If consciousness survives beyond death, you'll be aware anyway. But whether that's the case or not, there no doubt a person shot in the head is dead, and we can safely bury or cremate his body. Insults are forms of communication, and communication is like a car leaving my driveway, travelling down the road, and parking on your driveway. Communication does not occur until it reaches the destination. If someone tells me, in Swahili, that my children have been burnt to death, have I been informed? No, I haven't. Communication has not occurred. However, if they say 屌你老母 in a face to face exchange that's otherwise in good enough English for you to understand, what may be successfully transmitted from their body language is a sense that they're putting you down. You may not know precisely what's being said, but the general intent will still come across if your perceptual apparatus is well-enough tuned. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:56, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

So what we are saying here is that even though they insulted you, you were not insulted? Is there some semantic difference in the active and passive of this particular verb? If someone stuck a piece of paper on your back saying 'Kick me', they have made a fool of you, even if you didn't notice and someone else kindly removed the paper (without telling you). Have you not been made a fool of? I think Jimbo (in the real-life example above) has been insulted, he just may not know it. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:22, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It might depend on how many, if any, other people saw and understood the insult. In the case of "kick me" you have (at most) only been made a fool of if other people see the piece of paper. If someone stuck the paper on your back and then it fell off and was lost before anyone (other than the person who put it there) saw it, would you have been made a fool of then? Mitch Ames (talk) 03:17, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, and in this case (the Chinese written on Jimbo Wales' talkpage) it was there for the whole world to see (and still is, albeit struck out). Everyone involved in this thread knows what it means, in any case. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:29, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't speak Cantonese but as a native speaker of Mandarin (a deeply related language) it is my opinion that it does not mean "F*** your old mother" but rather just "F*** your mother"; in the Chinese dialects '老' is often used before a person to convey a sense of familiarity, not necessarily with the person but in the situation in general. For example (and I apologize for pinyin only, I am not capable of proper Chinese input on this computer): in putonghua 'wo3 de lao3 ma1' would mean 'my mother', 'lao3 ye2 zi' is "old man" (understood in the idiomatic sense, not the literal sense in ENglish), and 'lao3 xiong1' would be an older brother or male relative. 72.131.55.194 (talk) 03:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Very true, but bear in mind, by definition all of those people are older than you. In any case, we also have the same idiomatic usage in English, where the word 'old' is used as a term of familiarity, and almost of endearment. 'old mate' = 'friend' (usually, but not always one that you have been friends with for a long time, and hardly ever anything to do with age), 'old girl/old feller' = 'mum/dad' (Liverpool usage, expressing familiarity), 'have a pint of the old Tetleys' (simple term of endearment). For this reason I believe the 'old' in the translation can stay in, and the listener can make what they want from it. NB: In Liverpool, in all of the cases above, the word 'old' is pronounced 'ahl'. When 'old' means 'old', it is pronounced 'old'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I second the anon's view - it should be "fuck your mother". If 屌你老母 was "fuck your old mother" then it suggests a distinction between "old mother" and "mother", but 屌你母 is not idiomatic. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Whilst in Mandarin, 操你媽 is? Let me get this straight. 老 suggests familiarity or endearment. Endearment is obviously not the meaning in this phrase ("fuck your mother, of whom I am so fond" is ridiculous). Therefore, it is suggesting familiarity, albeit contemptuous familiarity? Is this correct? In which case it would fit perfectly with Liverpool English and Irish English, where we would say 'Fuck your old mother' (/'fux jɛra:l 'ma:/ in Liverpool). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

What language is this?

[2]? Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

They seem to be Sikhs, so I would assume Punjabi, although I have no way of knowing just by listening to it. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking that too, but the script looks a little different than the script at pa.wikipedia. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The leading singer is actually British(!), and he has a page on Wikipedia: Jassi Sidhu. And somewhere in the videoclip there's also Aman Hayer. Their articles say that they work in Bhangra style, which is commonly sung either in English or in Punjabi. But the writing system in the subtitles is not Punjabi or Devanagari, I can't recognize it right away. Seems remotely similar to Thai, but it's not Thai either.--Itinerant1 (talk) 23:50, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The subtitles are a South Indian script, Telugu I think. --ColinFine (talk) 00:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, and the channel logo indicates the channel ETV Telugu. --Itinerant1 (talk) 00:31, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

India's Wall Street Journal confirms that they sing in Punjabi. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Same or not?

hello,

are there any differences between "hint", "allusion" and "innuendo"? I mean they are all synonyms, but maybe they will sound oddly when used in different contex. For example "error" is technically, while "issue" and "problem" sociological, etc. Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 17:22, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

A hint is a partial solution to a problem, or a partial answer, or something like that. An allusion is a reference, sometimes obfuscated, to a literary work or something similar. Innuendo is language used to obfuscate information which is taboo to discuss directly. They all involve masking information in some way, but the nature of each (what information is masked, and how it is masked) is different. --Jayron32 18:18, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

(EC) There are significant differences in meaning. I can't think of any sentence in which they would be interchangeable, so I wouldn't describe them as synonyms. Have you tried looking up the words in a dictionary, such as this one?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:20, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks. I think "allusion" is the word I need.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 18:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The "T" in "often"

I've noticed that some English speakers ponounce the "t" in "often", while others say "offen" (as do I). I have not been able to connect this difference in pronunciation with the different varieties of English in a conclusive way. Myself, I learned to speak English by immersion in my early teens (late sixties), in Lusaka, Zambia, and I didn't even notice that some people pronounce the "T" until years later. Some of my classmates were the sons of UK foreign aid workers, some were the children of farmers who had lived in the country for generations, and some were the children of diplomats or foreign aid workers from many countries, including many from the USA.

My quesion is, which dialects, sociolects, national varieties of English pronounce the "T", and which don't? Thanks. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:30, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

According to the information I found on the web in various unreliable sources, the following happened:

• Original pronunciation, long ago, was with the t, which is why it is spelled that way.
• In the 17th century the t was lost.
• Until relatively recently, dictionaries listed only the t-less pronunciation.
• Then people started to pronounce the t again.
• Now both pronunciations are considered correct and listed in dictionaries.

The point about people starting to pronounce the t again, as opposed to a minority having done it all the time, might well be a case of incorrect (or overly prescriptive) old dictionaries and the recency illusion. But it also appears plausible that for some reason (possibly influenced by oft) some people 'corrected' their pronunciation based on the spelling. This would have resulted in most speakers not pronouncing the t, some more sophisticated speakers pronouncing it as a hypercorrection, and the most sophisticated speakers not pronouncing it because they knew that the hypercorrection was false. I.e. the least and most sophisticated speakers would have agreed against the intermediate ones, resulting in a pretty random distribution of the pronunciations. Hans Adler 23:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

• Important comment. Until recently, Wikipedia had an article titled List of words of disputed pronunciation, but somehow it was deleted. Perhaps if that article had still existed, it would help give information. Georgia guy (talk) 23:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

"Now, when you say orphan, do you mean 'person who has lost his parents', or do you mean — pfrequently?". — the Major General

--Trovatore (talk) 00:03, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

C19, generic distant British colonial outpost

Posh commanding officer: "Hear that sound in the distance, lads? That's war drums."

Geordie private: "Howay, then lets gan tek 'em back!"

--Shirt58 (talk) 12:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems to have been deleted on the grounds that it would rapidly become uselessly huge. I think to be useful it should exclude any known generic difference like those found in Phonological history of English short A and Phonological history of English high back vowels, and include only unique cases in which a specific word has developed multiple pronunciations, without forming part of a pattern of similar words.  Card Zero  (talk) 00:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there is a good case for recreating this old list or creating a similar new one, but it would have to be done with inclusion criteria that are clear, actually useful, and keep the list size reasonable. Often is a good candidate for inclusion because many native speakers are uncertain which is the 'most correct' pronunciation in their variant of standard English. Tomato is a good candidate for inclusion, even though it has no such uncertainties, because of the notable song that plays with the AE/BE difference. Finding reasonable list criteria such that both fit is a challenge. (It may be best to create such a new list in userspace first, and then present it to deletion review, or at least make absolutely sure that the AfD arguments have been dealt with.) Hans Adler 00:16, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Gee, instead of such a list, why wouldn't you just use a category in wiktionary? If there isn't one yet, create one, and tag words with them. – b_jonas 22:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The deleted list had this to say: "often (help·info) - (1) /ˈɒfən/, (2) /ˈɒftən/. Some dictionaries list (2) as the preferred British pronunciation, although according to LPD a poll among British speakers revealed 73% preferred (1) and only 27% (2). Most post-1990 American dictionaries list both pronunciations, but some pre-1990 dictionaries list only (1)." LPD is Longman's Pronunciation Dictionary, 1 st. ed., 1990. Rmhermen (talk) 00:34, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I see something similar with the second 't' in 'twenty'. --Itinerant1 (talk) 01:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Or both t's in Atlanta. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The "t" in "often" was retained (from the 17th century) and never lost in northern UK English dialects. I'm not sure about other regions or countries. The missing "t" in "twenty" and "Atlanta" seems characteristic of American pronunciation from this side of the pond, but the omission (e.g. "twenny", "plenny") is heard in the informal speech of some in the UK. Dbfirs 07:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Is the increasing usage of the /ˈɒftən/ pronunciation mainly a UK English phenomenon, or is it increasing in American, Australian, NZ and other varieties of English as well? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:02, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it's increasing in American English, but I think it's more stigmatized in American English than it is in British English. In Britain, even well educated people might pronounce the t in often, but in America it sounds quite nonstandard to do so. Angr (talk) 14:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't pronounce the t, and when I hear my fellow Americans do so, it sounds gauche to me personally. But I hear it so much, from such well-educated people, that I have to dispute the idea that it's still widely or effectively stigmatized in the US. (I'm sure it must have been when it first started sprouting up.) Wareh (talk) 02:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In my native dialect, the "t" in "often", along with other "t"s before "en" was formerly pronounced as a plosive with the tongue in the "t" position, but with the plosive actually made somewhere between the throat and the nose (the air escaping through the nose, rather like a small sneeze). I've no idea whether there is an IPA symbol for this strange consonant. I don't think I've heard it recently. Dbfirs 22:37, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

There are many examples of this trend to "speak as you spell", once condemned by the purists but allegedly encouraged by schoolteachers (maybe so they didnt have to teach so many exceptions (?!). If so, the teachers won because it seems to be irreversible, and indeed the traditional pronunciations can now seem affected or even ridiculous to the modern ear. See the article on Spelling_pronunciation or google "speak as you spell (movement)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.172.239.226 (talk) 01:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Or, for a more radical movement advocating a system of such pronunciation for many words, see Regular English Pronunciation. – b_jonas 22:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

... though in the case of "often", it is just a return to the original pronunciation, never abandoned by some. Dbfirs 09:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Evidence that it was "never abandoned by some"? I'm sure the /t/ was pronounced when the word first appeared in Middle English, but then it was deleted at the same time as other /t/s between a fricative and /n/, e.g. listen, hasten, soften, etc. I find it unlikely that the current pronunciation with /t/ ever reflects a preservation in unbroken succession from Middle English rather than a recently introduced spelling pronunciation. Does anyone who has a /t/ in often also have one in soften or listen? Angr (talk) 09:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would struggle to prove my claim of continuity because recordings of speech from hundreds of years ago don't exist. The situation is complicated by the fact that "oft" (with the "t" pronounced) is the form retained in dialect, so it is possible than the "en" was added early in the twentieth century to match the southern word. H W Fowler, who described the "t" in "often" as a "hypercorrection", was a southerner. He did teach in the north for a while, but he probably had very little exposure to the local accent. Dbfirs 13:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

My intuition is that there's a marked difference between often and soften on one hand and listen on the other. I don't know if it's the distinction between ft and st or if it's the obvious etymological relations with oft and soft and absence of any apparent connection between listen and list. But this non-native speaker always pronounced soften with the t (maybe because it's not a very frequent word, so 'regular' pronunciation wins over the 'correct' one) and started to also pronounce the t in often while working at Leeds University. Whereas I can't imagine anyone speaking the t in listen other than as a clear error of a fellow non-native speaker. Hans Adler 10:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

My personal observations confirm this, the "t" in "often" is pronounced in Yorkshire, and in Scotland (my experience here is only in the border areas though). It seems to be returning in the younger generation all over the UK though. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm an Australian from NSW from a blue collar industrial worker suburb with white collar parents in the education industry who received a BA education from a regional university that maintained high standards without class bigotry. Half my mother tongue was the primary school with blue collar, half was the household with more white collar. I say "offen" "offén" and "oftén" but never "oft'n". I tend to only say "often" when it makes poetic sense for mid word consonance or to mimic priggishness or upper class wankery. A normal offen is "off'n", whereas offen being in a stressed position is more "offén". I hope this gives you a linguistic data point. From what I can see it involves sociolects of class, though it seems to be a created distinction. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:41, 28 November 2011 (UTC)